21,000 years ago was the Last Glacial Maximum or LGM.
10,000 years ago our human population was about 5 million
1753, Joseph Black discovered Carbon Dioxide.
1800 A.D. the population was about 1 billion
1824 Joseph Fourier calculates that the Earth would be
far colder if it lacked an atmosphere.
1827, Jean-Baptiste Fourier suggested that an atmospheric
effect existed that kept the earth warmer than it would otherwise be. He used
the analogy of a greenhouse.
This was the first Industrial
Revolution where coal, railroads and land clearing speed up the greenhouse gas
emissions. Also better agricultural methods and better sanitation speed up
the earth's population growth.
1859 John Tyndall was the leading experimental
physicist of the 19th Century. He Established "Greenhouse" properties of
1870-1910 Second Industrial
Revolution. Fertilizers and other chemicals, electricity and public health
further accelerate the population growth.
1870 The level of Carbon Dioxide
(CO2) in the atmosphere is determined to be about 290 ppm. The
mean global temperature between 1850 and 1870 was about 13.6
degrees C. This was later
measured in ancient ice.
1896 Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist, suggested that
carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal would enhance the earth's
greenhouse effect and lead to global warming.
1897 Chamberlin produces a model for global carbon
exchange including feedbacks.
1900's Early in the Century, Svante Arrhenius, a chemist,
claimed that an increase in CO2 in the Atmosphere also meant an increase in
temperature. The correlation between CO2 and the average temperature of
the earth had been established. He also did the first calculations of what
the effect of doubling the CO2 in the atmosphere would be.
1914 - 1918 World War 1. The
governments learn to mobilize and control industrial societies.
1920 - 1925 Opening of Texas and the Persian Gulf Oil
Fields inaugurates an era of cheap energy.
1930s Early in the Century, British Engineer Guy Callendar
was the first to pursue Global Warming in a sustained way. he argued that
an increase in CO2 was already occurring and that the earth's temperature is
already increasing. The Callendar Effect.
1930s A Global Warming trend since the late Ninetieth
Century was reported.
Milankovitch proposes orbital changes as the cause of ice
1931 E. O. Hulbert published in the Physical Review, that
calculation shows that doubling or tripling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere
increases the surface temperature by 4 and 7 degrees respectively.
1938 Callendar argues that CO2 greenhouse Global
Warming is underway, reviving interest in the question.
1939 - 1945 World War II's Grand
Strategy is largely driven by a struggle to control oil fields.
1945 The US Office of Naval Research begins generous
funding of many fields of science, some of which happen to be useful for
understanding Global Climate Change.
1950's Gilbert Plass, a pioneer in upper atmosphere
spectroscopy resolved the absorption bands to much greater resolution and showed
that the absorption bands of water vapor and CO2 did not overlap, meaning that
CO2 levels were a real problem.
1956 Ewing and Donn offer a feedback model for quick
ice age onset.
1956 Phillips produces a somewhat realistic computer
model of the global atmosphere.
1956 Plass calculates that adding CO2 to the atmosphere
will have a significant effect on the radiati0on balance.
1957 Soviet launch of the
1957 Suess and Revelle, Tellus scientific magazine, stated
that Humans are performing a great geophysical experiment. Fossil fuels
were stored in the earth over hundreds of millions of years and now we are
releasing them, in a huge manner, in the past couple of decades.
Revelle finds that CO2 produced by humans will not be readily
absorbed by the oceans.
1957 Time Magazine printed an article titled, "One Big
Greenhouse." If surface temperatures would increase 1 to 2 degrees,
secondary effects may occur. Possibly the melting of the ice in Greenland
which would flood the earth's costal lands. Also, that the sea temperatures
would increase causing them not to hold the concentrations of CO2 as they
previously did and further the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.
1958 Telescope studies show that a greenhouse effect
raised temperature of the atmosphere of Venus far above the boiling point of
Keeling accurately measures of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere
and detects an annual rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. The
level at this time is 315 ppm. The mean global temperature is 13.9 degrees
1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis and
the peak of the Cold War.
1964 Gordon MacDonald, NAS-NRC Publication 1236, Washington
DC NAS Press 1964. Scientific Problems of Weather Modification. A
report of the Panel on Weather and Climate Modification, Committee on
Atmospheric Sciences, Warned of the inadvertent weather modification caused by
CO2 from Burning fossil fuels may indeed change the climate.
1965 In a Boulder Colorado meeting on the causes of
Climate Change, Lorenz and others point out the
chaotic nature of the climate system and
the possibility of sudden climate shifts.
1965 Presidents Science Advisory Committee, Board on Environmental
Pollution Committee led by Revelle and Keeling Stated that by the year 2000 that
there will be about 25% more CO2 in our atmosphere than at present. And,
this will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that
marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national
efforts, could occur. Restoring the Quality of Our Environment.
Report of the Environmental Pollution Panel, Presidents Science Advisory
Committee, The White House, December 1965, on Page 9.
1965 Lyndon Johnson, Special Message to Congress. "This
generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale
through a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels."
1966 Emiliani's analysis of deep sea cores show the timing of ice
ages was set by small orbital shifts, suggesting that the climate system is
sensitive to other small changes.
1967 The International Global Atmospheric Research Program was
established. Its purpose was mainly to gather data for better short range
1967 A computer simulation calculated that average global
temperatures might increase by more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the
levels of carbon dioxide.
1967 Manabe and Wetherald make a convincing calculation that saying
that doubling the CO2 levels would raise the world temperatures a couple of
1968 Studies suggest a possibility of the collapse of the Antarctic
ice sheets would raise sea levels catastrophically.
Neil Armstrong stands on the moon with Apollo 11.
1969 Budyko and Sellers present models of catastrophic ice albedo
1969 The Nimbus III satellite begins to provide comprehensive global
atmospheric temperature measurements.
The First Earth Day.
1970 The Creation of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
1971 SMIC Conference of leading scientist reports a danger of rapid
and serious global change caused by humans and calls for an organized research
Mariner 9 Spacecraft finds a great dust storm warming the atmosphere of Mars.
Also it finds indications of a radically different climate in the past.
1972 Ice core studies and other evidence show big climate shifts in
the past which happened between relatively stable periods in the space of a
thousand years or so, especially around 11,000 years ago.
The Oil Embargo and the rise in the of oil bring the First Energy Crisis.
1974 Serious droughts since 1972 increase concern about Climate
1975 Warnings about the environmental effects of airplanes leads to
investigations of trace gases in the stratosphere and the discovery of danger to
the Ozone Layer.
1976 Studies show that CFCs, Methane and Ozone can make a serious
contribution to the greenhouse effect.
1976 Deforestation and other ecosystem changes are recognized as
major factors in the future of the climate.
1976 Eddy shows that there wee prolonged periods without sunspots in
the past centuries which corresponded to cold periods.
1977 Scientific Opinion tends to converge on Global Warming and not
cooling as being the major risk in the next century.
1977 Report by the NRC "Energy and Climate", headed by Robert White,
NOAA director states that the CO2 may be serious.
1978 Robert White in "Oceans and Climate: An Introduction", states that,
"We now understand that industrial wastes, such as carbon dioxide released
during the burning of fossil fuels, can have consequences for climate that pos4e
a considerable threat to future society. The scientific problems are
formidable, the technological problems, unprecedented, and the potential
economic and social impacts, ominous.
The Second Oil Energy Crisis. The strengthened Environmental Movement
encourages renewable energy sources and inhibits the growth of Nuclear Energy.
1979 JASON "The long term impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide on climate,
Concerned about long term implications of dramatically increased coal use.
At current fossil fuel use rates, atmospheric CO2 likely to double by 2035.
And, this would perturb the climate by altering the irradiative properties of
the atmosphere. Their models for the atmosphere predicted that the average
temperature would increase about 2 - 4 degrees C, but the large zonal
differences, up to 10 - 12 decrees C at the poles. The term "Polar
Amplification" prediction is that the warming effect at the poles will be 4 to 5
times greater at the poles than the global average.
1979. And, NRC Study Group on Carbon Dioxide, "Charney Report".
"A plethora of studies from diverse sources indicates a consensus that climate
changes will result from man's combustion of fossil fuels and changes in land
use. "The close linkage between man's welfare and the climatic
regime within which has society has evolved suggest that such climatic changes
would have profound impacts on human society."
The IBM Computers are introduced.
1981 Hansen and others show that Sulfate Aerosols can
significantly cool the climate.
1982 Strong Global Warming has been shown between the
mid-1970s and now, with the warmest year on record being 1981.
1983 Reports from the US National Academy of Sciences
and Environmental Protection Agency spark a conflict and greenhouse warming
becomes a prominent issue in mainstream politics.
1985 Ramanathan and collaborators announce that global
warming may come twice as fast as expected because of the rise in amounts of
Methane gas and other trace greenhouse gases.
1985 The Villach Conference declares a consensus among
experts to call on governments to consider an international agreement to
1985 Antarctic ice cores show that CO2 and temperature
went up and down together through the past ice ages, pointing to powerful
biological and geochemical feedbacks.
1985 Broecker speculates that a reorganization of the
North Atlantic Ocean circulation can bring swift and radical climate change.
1987 Montreal Protocol of the Vienna Convention imposes
international restrictions on emissions of ozone destroying gasses.
1987 An ice core taken from Antarctica revealed an
extremely close link between carbon dioxide levels and temperature going back to
more than 100,000 years.
1988 News media coverage of Global Warming increases
following a season of record head that droughts.
1988 The Toronto Conference calls for strict, specific
limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Margret Thatcher is the first major
leader to call for action.
1988 Ice Core and Biological Studies confirm that
living ecosystems give climate change feedback by the amount of methane that
they produce and which could accelerate Global Warming.
1988 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was
Established by the United Nations
Environment Program and World Meteorological Organization. The IPCC's
first report found that the planet had warmed by 0.5 degrees C. in the past
century. The panel warned that only strong measures to halt rising
greenhouse gases would prevent serious global warming.
1988 The National Energy Policy Act of 1988. "...to
establish a national energy policy that will quickly reduce the generation of
carbon dioxide and trace gases as quickly as is feasible in order to slow the
pace and degree of atmospheric warming... to protect the global environment."
1988 The New York Times, August 23, 1988. "The
issue of an overheating world has suddenly moved to the forefront of public
1991 Mt. Pinatubo Explodes.
1992 The Earth Summit took place in Rio de Janeiro.
Here, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was
signed by 154 nations. It agreed to prevent 'dangerous' warming from
greenhouse gases and set voluntary targets for reducing emissions.
1993 Greenland ice cores suggest that great climate
changes can occur within a single decade.
1995 Second Assessment Report from the IPCC, International
Panel for Climate Change, states, "The balance of evidence suggest a discernible
human impact on global climate." Also that serious Global Warming is
likely to come in the following century.
1997 Kyoto Treaty. The Kyoto Protocol was agreed.
Where the UNFCCC agreed to voluntary targets, Koyoto was the first international
treaty to set legally binding emissions cuts for industrialized nations.
It was signed by 178 countries and came into force in 2005.
1998 A Super El Nino causes weather disasters and the
warmest year on record.
1999 Ramanathan detects a massive 'Brown Cloud' of
aerosols coming from South Asia.
2001 International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) in their
publication Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, p. 21.stated that, "Human
activities are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents that
absorb or scatter radiant energy. Most of the observed warming over the
last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas
concentrations" Also states that Global Warming has been
unprecedented since the end of the last Ice Age and is very likely to cause
2003 Deadly Heat Wave in Europe.
2004 Discover Magazine "the year that global warming got respect."
2005 June 2, Governor Schwarzenegger
Western Governors Climate Initiative
said, "I said the debate is over. We know the science. We see the threat, and we
know the time for action is now" San Francisco
2005 Kyoto Treaty goes into effect.
2005 Hurricane Katrina.
2006 October, Former Vice President Al Gore said, "Each
Passing day brings yet more evidence that we are now facing a planetary
emergency, a climate crisis that demands immediate attention.."
2006 The Stern Report was published in the UK by HM
Treasury. It was the first report of its kind into the economic impact of
climate change, and found that the cost of inaction far outweighed the cost of
2007 The UK government published the draft Climate
Change Bill. It aims to set legally binding targets for reducing emissions
to at least 60 percent of the 1990 levels by 2050.
2007 The fourth IPCC report confirmed that there is a
greater than ninety percent chance that global warming over the last 50 years is
due to human activity. It said that the planet had warmed 0.74 degrees C.
since the beginning of the Twentieth Century.
2007 CO2 level reaches 382 ppm and the
average temperature is 14.5 degrees C.
2007 The UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, all of
the world's nations agreed to negotiate on a deal to tackle dangerous climate
change. These deals are expected to happen in the next two years.
2007 Gallup Poll, 72% of Americans completely or mostly
convinced that Global Warming is Happening. 62% believe that life on earth
will continue without major disruptions only if society takes immediate and
drastic action to reduce global warming.